Straight talk zte z288l hotspot experience

I ordered the ZTE 288L through Walmart.com. The hotspot came unactivated. I returned to Walmart and they tried to activate it by taking it as return and reselling it to me, but the system did not prompt to scan the activation code. The store manager (very helpful) spent nearly an hour on phone with Straight Talk without success-in fact complete runaround. At that point I returned the hotspot for a refund. The manager thought because the 288 was not a normally stocked item the system did not accommodate the activation-and Straight Talk would not help.

I may look into buying another 288 hotspot in a store that normally stocks it. Which looks to be about 60 miles away. But I caution about activation on Straight Talk hotspots purchased from Walmart.com unless you're willing to drive to store which normally carries the product. At that point there is no good reason to buy it online.